Charles Komanoff
Recent Posts
Congestion Charging on the Horizon for China’s Cities
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Which Chinese city will be the first to try congestion pricing? Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai — megacities whose populations are on the scale of New York’s? Or second-tier but still mighty cities (think Chicago) like Hangzhou, Nanjing, or Xi’an? Road tolling à la American turnpikes and thruways is already extensive in China, as a means to […]
Strong Safety Record for NYC Bike-Share Should Come as No Surprise
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The Times’ good-news story this morning, “No Riders Killed in First 5 Months of New York City Bike-Share Program,” could almost have been written a year ago. In fact, it was, sort of, in this space. In June 2012, Streetsblog published my piece pooh-poohing predictions of looming traffic carnage. We followed that with a similar […]
Michael Gomez’s Death Wasn’t a Random Event
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Pre-teen and teenager deaths are rare in New York City. Out of nearly a million city residents ages 10-19, just 226 died in 2011, the most recent data year. That’s barely more than two deaths per 10,000. Sliced a bit differently, only four to five New Yorkers age 10-19 die each week. With this backdrop, […]
Make the Maspeth Crash Horror a Teachable Moment for New York City
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The latest bombshell from the horrific traffic crash that brutally injured at least three Maspeth girls walking to their middle school last week exploded this morning, with a report in DNAinfo that city education officials ordered the school principal to respond to the incident by warning students not to use electronic devices while traveling to […]
Predictions of Bike-Share Carnage Are a Mirage and a Distraction
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Just when you thought the bike-share detractors might have run out of steam — or at least taken a time-out — along comes an intellectually muddled piece in the NY Post warning of dead bike-share users littering Midtown streets. “Three people died in Paris’ first year of bike share. New York should heed Paris’s lesson.” […]
Bike-Share in The Village: What Would Jane Jacobs Do?
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I didn’t get to speak at the Manhattan Community Board 2 meeting last night to discuss bike-share — I stayed outside too long kibitzing on West 11th Street, so my speaker card landed at the bottom of the stack. Here’s what I would have said: I live in CB 1, on Duane Street, but my first […]
Fun Facts But Little Analysis in NYU Traffic-Injury Study
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There’s a lot to like in this morning’s New York Times front-pager summarizing a new study of injuries to pedestrians and cyclists in Manhattan and western Brooklyn. There’s the pull-no-punches headline, “Crosswalks in New York Are Not Haven, Study Finds.” Amen to that. And to the accompanying photo in which a bus, two cabs, and a […]
Transparency Must Accompany NYPD Crash Investigation Reforms
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The New York City Police Department has begun dispatching crash investigators to sites of critical-injury traffic crashes as well as fatalities, the New York Times reported Sunday. And in what the paper called “a symbolic semantic change,” the department is retiring the term “accident”; henceforth, traffic crashes will be called “collisions,” and the Accident Investigation […]
Lessons From London After 10 Years of the Congestion Charge
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A Republican member of Congress told me last week that he recently was in London for the first time in a long while. “Traveling was so much better,” he said. “You can actually get around. That traffic-charging system they’ve got seems to be doing a lot of good.” London’s system — known formally as congestion […]
Costs of Subway Slowdown Would Add Up Fast
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Following the recent deaths of two subway passengers who were pushed onto tracks, TWU Local 100 is urging operators to slash train speeds as they enter stations, the New York Times reported yesterday. A TWU flier, which you can view here, advises operators that “Preventing a [run-over], and saving yourself the emotional trauma and potential […]
Have the Days of Scapegoating the MTA Come to an End?
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MTA Love. Two words that have never before been paired have been practically joined at the hip during the recovery from Superstorm Sandy. To wit: The “enthusiastic round of applause” accorded Metropolitan Transportation Authority chief Joe Lhota at last week’s Association for a Better New York breakfast by real estate magnates and other civic power […]
Remembering Danny Lieberman, a Gentle Force for Better New York Cycling
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Before Streetsblog, there was “ebikes.” Since the early 1990s, this listserv has been a digital village square for New York-area bicycle riders — the place where cyclists share info on routes, gear, events and politics — and an incubator for change as well. Danny Lieberman, the listserv’s beloved founder, moderator and guiding spirit, and a […]